The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

This is a really sweet and touching novel about Rose, a girl who can taste people's emotions in the food they make. It's a little reminiscent of Like Water for Chocolate, but not quite as mystical.

Rose is a really great character - interesting, warm, funny, touching. She starts tasting her mother's emotions in food - baked goods are the most intense - when she is 8 years old. Over time she can identify where the oranges and eggs and chickens come from, and whether the farmer who provides them is happy in his work or would rather be doing something else. Initially she is not sure about sharing her extra sense with others, but she eventually learns to accept it and to live with it, and even to use it when it suits her.

Her brother is much less social than she is, and his extra sense is much stranger. I actually found Rose's sense to be much more believable than her brother's, whose sense didn't really seem to be related to hers. I'm not going to say what it is because that would give away a big part of the book.

If you are a fan of mystical realism this is a great book. If you aren't, then this probably isn't a book you would care to read. But I thought it was a lovely story.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel